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How much time studying vocabulary? | ||
Tags: Time to learn | Vocabulary learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| basica Senior Member Australia Joined 3323 days ago 157 posts - 269 votes  Studies: Serbian | Message 33 of 350 28 April 2015 at 4:20pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I think one thing that always needs to be remembered is that the success or failure of a method cannot really
be judged by looking at any one person because they just might be the exception. Anyone familiar with Kim Ung-yong? He was able to speak at 6 months old and knew a few languages by the time he was 3. I'm sure whatever method he decided to use to learn a language would result in success, and rapid success at that. So when I see someone make rapid progress with a method that would be amazing no matter how it was done - what I see is that it's the person that's amazing and not necessarily the method. This is basically my thought's on smallwhite's success. As for the OP, I spend a short amount of time using anki - every once in a while I bulk add cards. Usually the vocabulary I add is taken from the lesson I am doing in my textbook. Occasionally I add others if I come across something I feel would be a good idea to know. Anyways, it's usually less than 10mins a day. I'm averaging about 6. I would also add that while I prefer to memorise words by themselves, I do think sentences help as well so I do use them on occasion. The benefit I find with memorising vocabulary is that while knowing a few thousand words in a language does not mean you understand it well - it does seem to give you a foundation in my experience at least. To be fair though, I can't really comment till I am fairly conversant in this language :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4696 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 34 of 350 28 April 2015 at 4:51pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Thank you for your cogent defense of words. The weight of opinion on HTLAL seems to be that learning individual words is bad, even worse if you learn them with a translation. I'm not sure if that's because most regulars believe that, or because those are currently the loudest voices. My preference is to use single word cards, with a translation on the back. Usually the translation is English, but I'm making my new Sanskrit deck with French translations (mainly because I'm using Assimil le Sanskrit). I also make phrase cards, but they are probably 5% of my cards, and I've usually made separate cards of the individual words. To the OP: as you can see, there are a wide variety of opinions on any subject here at HTLAL. The important thing for you is to try out the methods that you think will be useful, but don't expect any method or technique to work by magic. One method might be great for you one day, and the next day it will be awful. What matters is not the method, but the fact that you are studying your language and giving it time to grow (thanks for that link, Serpent!) Some of us like to stick to a few tried and true methods, others of us switch methods all the time to keep interested. Either way, it is the student who sticks with it who actually learns their language(s). 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5095 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 35 of 350 29 April 2015 at 1:48am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Indeed I lived in English-speaking countries in kindergarten, senior high school and university. Maybe it's just me. (Though I don't really understand what's just me? I was just stating numbers which are universal... And people who take intensive language classes reach C1 in a year, too; it's not like I achieved any incredible feat.) (And it was just French, Spanish and German I was learning, languages similar to English and with heaps of resources.)
When I feel sick enough of it? I don't think I was ever in a situation where your 2nd question would apply. But then every now and then I extract my weaker words from the deck to do extra revision. Now maybe that last point was actually one of the keys. Since school, and with anything I learn, I don't study everything equally; I always work on just the parts I don't know, and my notes include only things I don't know. I'm obsessed with efficiency. To use a familiar example, I avoid broad reading because that would contain too many things that I'm already familiar with. I read different authors in order to extract different genres of words to learn, but after copying down 200 words from a book, I stop and I proceed to the next book (I find that quite funny actually ^^).
I know, and I agree with that grow thing, but with vocabulary-learning, I've done it both ways and I don't see much difference. To me, that grow thing applies to grammar and but not vocabulary.
I don't know what I can add to my previous reply. My calculations were for 8000 cards. What you put on your 8000 cards is up to you. If you SRS 8000 different variations of "faire", you will not reach C1 vocabulary level in 1 year. If you SRS 1 to 2 variations of about 6000 words, you will. If you spend 6 months studying the word "faire", you will not get anywhere. And it sounds like you are not aware of the distinction between LEARNING and SRS REVIEWING/REVISING (or grammar and vocabulary). Let's just say I see these distinctions different from you, and it happens that I've been learning words and advancing in my studies "without toil". Edited by smallwhite on 29 April 2015 at 1:55am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5217 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 36 of 350 29 April 2015 at 5:29am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I concur here with iguanamon in the sense that I may be skeptical or even critical of a method or a technique but
in the end it is the results that count: what can you do in the language? This is why I like the CEFR system so much. It doesn't state any numbers for vocabulary; it doesn't talk about specific points of grammar; it doesn't talk about accent. Instead, it talks about the ability to do things in the language. This is why I'm so curious about the specifics of SRSing the 8000 entries. I really would have liked to see some card entries. I'm trying to see how to adapt this to my situation. I'm not questioning the effectiveness; if it works for the user, that's what counts. If after 8000 cards at 22 minutes a day the user is comfortable with any of the can do statements of a C1 level, then obviously it works. The main reason for my curiosity in all this is that no where do the CEFR scales specify numbers of words for the various levels. In fact, there have been very few studies about this question. I even think that most people, I would include myself and probably iguanamon, don't even count the number of words that they know or use. What is paramount here is what you can do with the words you know. Do you need 8000 words/cards to reach C1? I personally do not believe so. Without getting into another argument here, I take the position that a working vocabulary of 1000 - 2500 distinct words well mastered are all you need at any C level. Does studying 8000 words/cards guarantee attainment of a C1 level of performance? I would think not. Again the question is what one can do with these words. There is no C1 or C2 vocabulary. Does C2 imply a larger number of words than a C1? I don't think so. What will distinguish a C2 from a C1 (and the other levels of course) is the ability to use the same words with greater precision and refinement. In passing, although I agree that spending 6 months on faire in not a good idea, I would strongly suggest revisiting faire and other key verbs to squeeze more value out of them because this is precisely what indicates sophistication and real mastery of the language. Similarly, I have argued many times here that one key characteristic of the C2 level of performance is the use of idiomatic and figurative speech. This does not usually require any new words; it's just recombining the existing words in a different way. Using for example "autant que faire se peut" or "pour faire suite à" will demonstrate to the CEFR examiners that you really know your stuff. Therefore, my personal position, and I think it's just me, is that instead of learning a bunch or words that one will most likely never use, it's more effective to concentrate, by systematic practice, on acquiring total mastery of the fundamental vocabulary. Consequently, the key metric will not be the number of words or cards studied but more something like the number of words written, i.e. number of pages written and corrected with a tutor, or the number of hours spent talking and being corrected or even the days or weeks spent in immersion with native speakers in the language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6384 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 37 of 350 29 April 2015 at 5:30am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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About universal numbers, I think the thing is that few of us can routinely do 1 card in 2 seconds. For me Anki is perfect when I'm on the brink of forgetting something, or have forgotten already. Even if I had a more efficient system I still wouldn't type so fast, and nowadays I'd rather type in lyricstraining than in Anki.
I'm not as sceptical as s_allard but I do wonder where the C1 estimate comes from. Edited by Serpent on 29 April 2015 at 5:34am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Sterogyl Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4154 days ago 152 posts - 263 votes Studies: German*, French, EnglishC2 Studies: Japanese, Norwegian | Message 38 of 350 29 April 2015 at 7:59am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
I don't know whether 1000 active words are enough for C2, even if well mastered, but never ever will 1000 - 2500 words suffice for reading and listening comprehension. My guess would be that you will have to understand at least 10,000 or even more words in order to pass any C level exam. And you somehow need to get these words into your brain. This is where SRS comes in. It's not necessary, but very efficient and practical. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5095 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 39 of 350 29 April 2015 at 8:16am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
So I used 4 seconds, double my time, to arrive at the 22 minute figure. Double; that's a lot of leeway. And also, to be efficient in your learning (or in anything), you need to use efficient tools, need to train your auxiliary skills like typing and computer skills, even need to place your books nearer your desk, etc. Like I said, I'm obsessed with efficiency :D
I'm sorry, do you mean you wonder why I say I'm at or my vocabulary level is at C1? A couple years ago I got C1 in my French TCF, while my Spanish is now better than my French was, so I think I'm at C1 in Spanish. Out of the 9 novels that I've read (partially), the percentage of unknown words is 1.76%. "Unknown words" are those that I don't understand if taken out of context, ie. includes those that I could guess the meaning of from the context. I don't think 1.76% is B2 or below.
I like talking about SRS, but in fact I think mine's actually a grammar-heavy approach. Grammar as the skeleton and vocabulary as the flesh, with listening and speaking separately trained. Pretty old school, I think. Grammar doesn't take (me?) very long to learn, so I happen to end up spending a large percentage of my time on vocabulary. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6992 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 40 of 350 29 April 2015 at 12:09pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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The three pillars of language learning seem to be:
1) Efficiency 2) Talent 3) Tenacity The more of these components one has, the greater the chance of success. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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